


love's worth running to

by extasiswings



Series: playground love [7]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: (sort of), 3x15, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Soft Eddie Diaz, Trauma Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23869513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: Buck doesn’t bring up what happened.  Mostly, it’s because he doesn’t know how.Hey, remember a few nights ago when you obviously had a PTSD episode and then we didn’t talk about itdoesn’t exactly feel like an especially sensitive conversation starter.He figures out what it was about pretty easily though when Christopher brings in the medal.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: playground love [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696435
Comments: 57
Kudos: 540





	love's worth running to

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone else still a wreck over Eddie Begins? All of us? Just me? Anyway, my emotions are real.

There’s blood in Eddie’s mouth. Gunshots ring in his ears, the smell of burning metal, fabric, flesh, acrid in his nose.

_“Diaz! I’m out of ammo!”_

_“I’ve got you!”_

More gunshots. Pain in his shoulder, his hand, his legs—his heart pounding out of his chest. 

_“ETA six minutes.”_

_“We don’t have six minutes.”_

_I’m gonna die here. Fuck, we’re all gonna die here. Christopher…_

“Eddie. Hey. Eddie, Eddie, wake up—“ The voice cuts through the fog of panic clouding his head. _Eddie_. Not _Diaz_. _Eddie_. He latches onto the thread of that thought. “—come on, baby, please—”

The gunshots slowly recede. The desert falls away, until all that’s left is the sound of his own ragged breathing. When Eddie forces his eyes open, it still takes a moment to reorient himself, but he knows he’s in a bedroom, he knows he’s in LA, he knows he’s with—

“Eddie?”

_Buck._

Eddie swallows hard as he unwinds from the ball he’s curled into and rolls onto his back, closing his eyes again and dragging a hand over his face. He’s soaked in sweat—he shivers as it cools.

“Sorry,” Eddie says, still covering his eyes. His voice is a rasp, scraping at his throat like sandpaper. He doesn’t think he was screaming—he doesn’t usually, but then again, he also hasn’t had a nightmare that bad in several months. “Did I wake you up?”

“Did you—“ Buck cuts himself off and the mattress dips as he shifts closer. “No. No, Eddie—can I touch you? Is that okay?”

Eddie bites the inside of his cheek. He feels sick, stomach turning over and phantom pains echoing through his body. His skin feels too tight for his body and his eyes prick with hot tears.

_Fuck._

There’s an instinctive piece of him that wants to say no, that wants to shove it all down, to be strong and controlled and not this…weak, vulnerable shell. To lock himself in the bathroom and stand in the shower until the hot water runs out, until he feels human enough to put the mask back in place and pretend this never happened. He’s supposed to be fine, he’s supposed to have it together. He should be able to pull himself back together. He shouldn’t be falling to pieces in front of Buck.

_Christ, Diaz, be a man._

But the rest of him—fuck, he’s so tired of trying to deal with this on his own. So fucking tired. 

He breaks. It takes nothing at all to drop his hand away from his face and roll into Buck’s warmth. His boyfriend’s arms come around him instantly, holding fast, squeezing tight, and Eddie tucks his face against Buck’s neck and just breathes, shaky, shuddering breaths. 

“It’s okay,” Buck says quietly. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Eddie chokes on a sob, shivering as guilt and shame drip down the back of his throat like poison. 

_“You got everyone out.”_

_“Not everyone.”_

_He had three kids…_

There’s a dark place in Eddie’s head that traps him in moments like this, shadowy tendrils wrapping around his ankles and pulling him down like blocks of cement. Asking why him—why did Christopher get his dad back, one he mostly only knew on the other side of a video screen, when other kids didn’t? Did the right guy really make it home? 

When he first got back, it was paralyzing. He was done, he was alive, but it didn’t feel like living when he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, sure as hell couldn’t do anything right with Christopher. He came home, but he didn’t, pieces of him scattered in the desert thousands of miles away. 

It was like drowning on dry land.

Still is sometimes.

“I’ve got you,” Buck repeats, and Eddie focuses on that, on Buck’s voice, on Buck’s arms around him, anchoring him in place. Safe. Steady. Home.

It could be minutes or it could be hours before Eddie finally gets his breathing back under control, fully coming back down. Buck notices when he does, loosening his embrace and pulling back just enough to touch Eddie’s face.

“Better?”

Eddie nods once. “A little.”

“You want to see Chris?”

_Yes._

Eddie glances at the door and sits up. “I don’t want to wake him…”

“We’ll just peek in,” Buck assures, slipping out of bed and pulling Eddie along with him. 

And they do. Eddie opens the door to Christopher’s bedroom as quietly as possible, leaning against the frame as Buck stands behind him with a hand curving around his waist. Across the room, Christopher is nestled in a pile of blankets sound asleep, his chest rising and falling slowly. Peaceful. Safe. Loved. After a few minutes, Eddie sighs heavily and closes the door again, rubbing his hands over his face as he steps back into the hall. 

Buck doesn’t say a word, just watches him steadily.

“Thank you,” Eddie says quietly. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Eddie shakes his head. It’s too close to the surface for that. And he still feels—

Ashamed. 

“I’m gonna…shower,” he replies, raking a hand up through his hair. 

“Hey.” Buck grabs Eddie’s wrist gently as Eddie walks past him. Eddie stops, his stomach twisting as he forces himself to meet Buck’s eyes. 

But there’s no judgment in them. No expectation.

“I love you,” Buck adds.

They haven’t said it since the first time, since a phone call and a parking lot confession. 

Eddie hadn’t realized how much it would help to hear it again.

He slides his hand back enough to squeeze Buck’s. 

_Don’t you dare fuck this up, Diaz_ , he thinks.

“I love you, too.”

* * *

Buck doesn’t bring up what happened. Mostly, it’s because he doesn’t know how. _Hey, remember a few nights ago when you obviously had a PTSD episode and then we didn’t talk about it_ doesn’t exactly feel like an especially sensitive conversation starter. But it’s also because he can’t help thinking about the look on Eddie’s face in the hall, like he was waiting for Buck to yell or criticize or leave, and that’s a whole separate can of worms he doesn’t know what to do with.

He figures out what it was about pretty easily though when Christopher brings in the medal. 

“You ever wear it?” Buck teases, only to see Eddie tense, his smile growing forced and wan. Eddie’s eyes go away for a moment, like he’s somewhere else, before he blinks and returns, and Buck swears internally. He’s abruptly reminded that the title of _hero_ usually comes with a pretty heavy cost. And that you don’t hear about the army giving out silver stars for missions where everything went well. 

“That a story that’s appropriate for fourth graders?” He asks Eddie quietly after Carla takes the medal back.

Eddie’s jaw tightens and he drops his gaze. “Not really.”

“You know,” Buck says later, as they’re grabbing their things to head out to the call, “I’m sure Christopher would understand if you aren’t comfortable talking about it.”

“I don’t think that’s the kind of thing you can easily explain to an eight-year-old, Buck.” 

“Sure, but I bet you could—”

“Don’t tell me how to parent my kid, okay?” Eddie snaps. Buck tries not to wince, but Eddie’s face twists anyway and he immediately reaches for him.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says. “I didn’t—“

“It’s okay,” Buck assures. It stings, but he knows it wasn’t meant that way.

“It’s not.” Eddie reaches out and squeezes his hand before they climb into the truck.

Buck squeezes back. “You can make it up to me later.”

He almost has to laugh when he thinks back on it. _Later_. Right. 

“Eddie, let me do it,” Buck says, practically shouting to be heard over the pouring rain and the sound of machinery. 

“This kid knows me now,” Eddie replies, checking the clasps on the harness. “He knows my voice, he trusts me, it has to be me.”

“Bullshit.” Buck doesn’t know why he’s fighting it so much. It’s the job—he knows it and Eddie knows it. They do dangerous shit like this every shift. Well…not quite like this, but there’s always the possibility of it anyway. 

But this feels different. There’s a block of ice in his chest, warning bells going off all around.

“Buck.” Eddie stops and looks up at him. “It’s a kid. A scared, freezing little kid who knows my voice. One of us has to go down there anyway—I can do this. Why shouldn’t I?”

 _Christopher_ , Buck wants to say. But then, that’s not really fair, is it? They all have people waiting at home.

He looks away.

“Hey. “ Eddie grabs Buck’s wrist. “You have the line, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Buck replies.

“Then what are you worrying about? I know you’ll get me out.”

Buck swallows hard, still unable to shake the feeling. “Eddie—”

“Eddie!” Bobby waves them over. “It’s time!”

Eddie flashes Buck a grin. “I’d kiss you for luck, but the camera crews would have a field day,” he teases.

Buck manages a smile despite himself and shoves at Eddie’s shoulder. “Who says I want to kiss you anyway? We’ve been in the mud for hours—you smell.”

“Like you can tell with all this rain anyway.”

“Shut up and get yourself hooked up. Sooner you’re down and back, the sooner we can all take a hot shower.”

The ice doesn’t go away when Eddie disappears into the ground. Instead, it spreads—foreboding chilling every crack of Buck’s body as he keeps an eye on the clock and holds the line.

Holds Eddie.

“He needs more time,” Buck insists when the timer runs and Eddie still hasn’t tugged the line to come up. _Something is wrong._ “Cap, come on—just a few more minutes.”

Bobby shakes his head. “Bring him up.”

So Buck does. Until the weight on the line vanishes and he ends up with nothing by a severed cable in his hands.

Yeah, he’s pretty sure he’s going to kill his boyfriend after he gets him back.

“Cap!” He shouts. “Let me go—I can—”

“So we can end up with two cut lines?” Hen interrupts. 

“Chim, you’re up.”

Buck barely breathes for the next several minutes. He waits as Chim descends, exhales shakily when he comes back up with Hayden in his arms, catching Buck’s eyes and nodding once.

 _He’s fine, see,_ Buck tells himself. _Nothing to worry about._

And then, lightning strikes.

* * *

There’s mud on his hands.

It’s a weird thing to focus on, Buck knows that, but he can’t seem to help himself. The ice is everywhere—in his lungs, his gut, his very blood feels frozen over.

He’s numb.

And there’s mud on his hands.

He’d have to dig through at least thirty more feet of it to get to Eddie.

“He’s not dead.”

He says it to himself, not for anyone else, but Hen looks over anyway.

“Of course he isn’t,” she says quietly. “We’re going to figure this out, Buck.”

The thing is though. The thing is. Buck can see all of their faces. Bobby’s, Chim’s, Hen’s. And he’s had the training too. The _how do you keep a desperate spouse calm while you’re waiting for bad news_ training.

They’re treating him with spouse gloves.

It might almost be funny if Buck didn’t feel like emptying the contents of his stomach into the closest receptacle. 

“He’s not dead,” he repeats, even softer.

He has to hang onto that. Because if he can’t, if he has to face the idea of going home, of having to tell Christopher—

“Woah, Buck—” Chim catches him around the waist when his knees give. Buck grips the railing on the porch to steady himself, to straighten back up again.

“I’m fine.”

“You should go inside,” Chim suggests. “Sit down for a minute.”

“I said I’m fine.”

There’s still mud on his hands.

Buck pushes off the railing and walks away. Not that there’s really much of anywhere to go.

He wants to go back out to the well. He wants to dig until his skin is raw, until his hands are bleeding, until there’s nothing else to do.

He wants to ask Bobby how to pray.

That’s a thing people do in situations like this, right? Buck’s not very good at being religious, but he’s a firefighter. He saves people. That’s gotta be worth some kind of clout with God, right?

Right?

Buck thinks about the other night, about holding Eddie until he stopped shaking. He would trade everything just for that. He doesn’t care if Eddie ever manages to talk about it, he doesn’t care if he has to hold Eddie through nightmares every night for the rest of their lives, he just—

He flinches when the hand falls to his shoulder.

“I can’t do it, Cap,” Buck whispers. “I can’t go home if we can’t—”

“They’ve got an idea,” Bobby says. “We’re all circling up.”

“It’s been a long time.”

_Too long?_

Ice in his veins. Mud on his hands.

_He’s not dead._

“He cut the line,” Buck adds, even as he allows himself to be led over to the others. His own voice feels far away, thoughts spinning off his tongue stream of consciousness. “I was supposed to bring him back and he cut—”

“Eddie’s a grown man who made his own choices,” Bobby replies. “He knew what he was doing.”

“I can’t—”

“We’re going to get him back.”

Buck barely hears the plan when the briefing starts. He stares straight ahead and it all technically goes in his ears, but he doesn’t register any of it.

“—heat sensors—”

“That might be difficult. I’m pretty cold.”

Buck’s head whips up at the sound of Eddie’s voice, feeling like his legs might give out again. But it really is him.

It really is.

Buck doesn’t even register crossing the distance, catching Eddie as he collapses.

“You’re a real bastard, you know that?” He chokes out as they make their way to the ambulance. Eddie manages a small laugh, his eyes closing as he rests his head on Buck’s shoulder.

“I came back to you, didn’t I? Little later than I promised, but—”

“Fuck you,” Buck swears, but there’s no heat in it. In the ambulance, Eddie catches his hand and squeezes it.

“Can you do something for me?” He asks.

“Of course.”

“They’re probably gonna keep me at the hospital for at least a few hours. Can you—can you go home and stay with Christopher? I don’t—I don’t want him to be alone, he shouldn’t—he shouldn’t have to be—he needs to be with someone who loves him.”

There’s something wild in Eddie’s eyes, a panic that runs too deep to only be from the past night. Which is why, even though Buck doesn’t want to let Eddie out of his sight, he says—

“I’ll go. He won’t be alone.”

Christopher is asleep when Buck arrives. Carla takes one look at him—at the filth still clinging to his skin, at the redness of his eyes, at the trembling of his hands—and opens her arms for him to fall into. And finally, Buck breaks.

After, once he’s been forced into a shower and given some clean clothes, he doesn’t go to Eddie’s room. He goes to Christopher’s.

And as Buck watches Christopher sleep, he thanks any deity that may be listening that he won’t have to tell him that he lost another parent.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Love Run" by The Amazing Devil


End file.
